Rolfe Winkler

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Killing zombies isn’t just a job for horror-movie heroines. It’s also one of Sheila Bair’s primary tasks. And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp chief’s challenge has increased as the number of scary banks on the regulator’s watch list has spiked. Thankfully, there’s no financial excuse to keep FDIC from quickly exterminating the industry’s living dead.

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With the problem bank list 552 names long, and the unofficial list even longer, one might expect FDIC to pick up the pace of bank closures. Yet here we are, six Fridays into the new year, and only 16 banks have been put into receivership, with none this week and only one last week. At that rate, we’ll see 136 closures in 2010, short of the 140 that were closed last year.

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Geithner has reservations on US banks (Wutkowski/Eder, Reuters) More evidence that Geithner is a goner. Will Volcker replace him? Sheila Bair could be a dark horse. She has lots of Democratic fans on the Hill despite being appointed by a Republican. In any case, Geithner was on PBS last night defending the plan.

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Due to new accounting rules — FAS 166 and 167 — banks have to bring certain off balance sheet assets back onto their balance sheets starting next year. More assets, same capital = lower capital ratios. (More in this column about the individual impact on the large banks).

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The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp tried to seize and sell Cleveland thrift AmTrust last January but local politicians intervened. In the end, the bank still went bust 11 months later – a delay that may have increased losses to the U.S. regulator’s funds. As Congress debates banking reform, AmTrust provides a useful warning that the regulatory apparatus needs to be kept free from politics.

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FDIC published its quarterly banking profile today. Here are the latest banking industry statistics at a glance. A few interesting takeaways I’d like to highlight. First, the problem bank list grew again. And it still understates total problem assets…both Citi and Bank of American should also be on this list.

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General Motors Acceptance Corp on Wednesday sold $2.9 billion in three-year government-guaranteed notes, according to a market source familiar with the sale. The 1.75 percent notes were priced at 99.991 to yield 1.753 percent, or 31.6 basis points over comparable U.S. Treasuries.

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Headlining this week’s bank failures is Corus out of Chicago. Condo loans in Florida and other bubbly states did ‘em in. There’s an odd item in the press release. It lists the bank’s deposits as “approximately” $7 billion. I can’t remember seeing that modifier in a bank failure press release. When you read enough of them, the littlest things jump out at you…